nd to mine enemy by a
chain, whose strongest link is forged by my own daughter.
She--Mildred!--No, no--that link was not forged by her: it hath not its
shape from human workmanship. Oh, that like those inspired enthusiasts
who, in times of old,--yea, and in a later day--have been able to open
the Book of Destiny, and to read the passages of man's future life, I
might get one glimpse of that forbidden page!--To what a charitable use
might I apply the knowledge. Wise men have studied the journeyings of
the stars, and have--as they deemed--discovered the secret spell by
which yon shining orbs sway and compel the animal existences of this
earth; even as the moon governs the flow of the ocean, or the fever of
the human brain. Who shall say what is the invisible tissue--what the
innumerable cords--that tie this planet and all its material natures to
the millions of worlds with which it is affined? What is that mysterious
thing which men call attraction, that steadies these spheres in their
tangled pathways through the great void?--that urges their swift and
fearful career into the track of their voyage, without the deviation of
the breadth of a single hair--rolling on the same from eternity to
eternity? How awfully does the thought annihilate our feeble and
presumptuous philosophy! Is it, then, to excite the scorn of the wise,
if we assert that some kindred power may shape out and direct the
wanderings of man?--that an unseen hand may lay the threads by which
this tottering creature is to travel through the labyrinth of this
world; aye, and after it is done, to point out to him his course along
the dark and chill valley, which the dead walk through companionless and
silent? Have not men heard strange whispers in the breeze--the voice of
warning? Have they not felt the fanning of the wing that bore the secret
messenger through the air? Have they not seen some floating fold of the
robe as it passed by? O God!--have they not seen the dead arise? What
are these but the communings, the points of contact, between the earthy
and spiritual worlds--the essences or intelligences that sometimes flit
across the confine of our gross sphere, and speak to the children of
clay? And wherefore do they speak, but that the initiated may regard the
sign, and walk in safety? Or, perchance, some mischief-hatching
fiend,--for such, too, are permitted to be busy to mar the good that God
has made--may speak in malice to allure us from our better purpose